Administrative employees at the Harvard Medical School (HMS) are in for a stressful two weeks, as the April 30 deadline for deciding whether or not to take an early retirement approaches.

In an effort to avoid an impending deficit, HMS has offered senior employees who meet certain criteria an attractive severance package as the first of a series of measures to cut costs.

But workers and union representatives acknowledge that the program will not benefit everyone.

“For people whose goal is to continue working at Harvard for a long time, this is probably not an attractive option,” said Bill Jaeger, Director of the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW). “There will be lots of people who won’t take it. I think where it’s attractive is for somebody who was planning to leave anyway.”

Those positions that are vacated as a result of the severance program will be scrutinized by several “work review” groups to decide whether to eliminate the position or refill it. According to an informational packet sent to eligible employees in late February, the HMS administration will make every effort to avoid hiring new employees for the vacated positions. Meanwhile, supervisors are not permitted to recommend that staff members accept or deny the package, because employees who deny the package now and are laid off at a later date would not be eligible for its benefits.

The expansion of science research facilities at HMS has left the school with a number of new expenses, and the push to cut positions is part of an initiative to overcome a projected deficit, according to Executive Dean for Administration Eric Buehren.

Jaeger said he sees the move as a shift in resources from administration to research.

“We’re respectful of the way the Medical School is doing this, as they’ve consulted with us significantly about how to reduce spending in staffing in some areas so they can grow in other areas,” he said.

Some current employees see the move as coercive, however.

“If you do not take it, you and everyone else at the Medical School can be involuntarily laid off after the fact,” said Anne Frankel, a Library Assistant at Countway Medical Library who has been working at HMS for 13 years. “They’re trying to get rid of the people who are costing them more, giving them an incentive to leave and making it inviting.”

According to Jaeger, however, the program represents “a good faith effort to keep the fear and disruption of layoffs to a minimum.

“Involuntary layoffs are disruptive,” he said. “Instead of work getting done, we have a lot of fearful water cooler time. If this program works for the Medical School, it’ll be because they didn’t terrify the work force with talks of layoffs.”

WORKERS WORRY

The administration has not set a specific goal for how many jobs the severance program should vacate, and if the work review groups do not cut enough jobs, involuntary layoffs—without the lucrative terms of the severance package—may be necessary anyway.

“We didn’t structure this program with a budget number in mind,” Buerhens explained. “But we know we aren’t going to have enough people leave through this program to solve the school’s financial problems. It’s going to require a whole range of actions.”